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After Cancer, Everyday Miracles

It has been two years since I learned that I had prostate cancer, and a bit more than a year since I had any treatment for what I eventually learned was an aggressive Stage 3 cancer.

Being from the sticks of New Hampshire, I’m reminded of a woods that has burned. There is still plenty of scorched earth and charred deadfalls, but, more important, the green scrub and optimistic wildflowers of normality are creeping back.

Dana Jennings

I’m in pretty good shape these days. I live from PSA test to PSA test – every three months – and so far, so good. I still get more tired than I would like because my body chemistry is still in ferment from hormone therapy. And, to get an erection, I have to inject my penis with Cavereject, which stimulates blood flow. (It’s not as bad as it sounds. Honest.)

But those are just physical details. I’m more interested in what I’ve learned from my cancer, how it has actually – and unexpectedly — changed me. Cancer is a hard teacher, but a teacher even so.

More than ever, I know that I am blessed in sons and my marriage. That on a cold winter’s night a pint of porter in the company of a good neighbor is a bounty in this uncertain world.

Yes, cancer is about an unwanted mutiny in the body. But, too, it’s about love and transience. Postcancer, I love who and what I love more deeply than ever. And I keenly feel in my bones the sheer evanescence of our existence.

I’ve also undergone changes that are more obvious. The anger that raged within me after my diagnosis has mellowed to a simmer — I don’t bellow at speeding cars anymore. I do admit, though, that my tolerance for jerks and trivia has vanished as time’s arrow pricks at my back.

I’ve become more myself these past two years, having shed the need to impress anyone. Cancer cells also knock the ego down a peg or two.

And when I realized recently that the last baseball season that truly floored me was in 1975, when the Boston Red Sox and the Cincinnati Reds played their epic World Series, I galloped to the stacks to gobble up books about the primal days of the major leagues and the Negro leagues. (Yep, Ted Williams still hit .406 in 1941.)

That reading, in turn, led me to Ebbets Field Flannels, and the wool replica of Satchel Paige’s 1942 Kansas City Monarchs home jersey that hangs in my closet. Like ol’ Satchel, I don’t look back, because I don’t want to see what might be gaining on me.

Most important, I think, I continue to consciously slow down as our maniacal culture speeds up. I’m constantly on the lookout for those miracles in a minor key that present themselves to us each day.

I crave a certain fierceness of perception, am more open to the fullness of life seized in one small moment or gesture:

Bats carving inky compulsories in the purple-black dusk.

Fern, the sweet apricot cockapoo up the street, who likes to plant her petite butt on my foot.

The topographical hieroglyphics of moss and lichen thriving on rock and stone.

The eternal summer conjured by Dick Dale’s feral surf guitar.

The dank musk of rain on the wind.

The down-home holiness of bluegrass gospel sung by Bill Monroe and the Stanley Brothers.

A wicked curveball just nicking the outside corner of the plate.

The puppy breath of our two new golden retrievers, smelling like wet and bitter grass.

The daredevil gray squirrels that tap-dance along the back fence.

April snow, which my country-boy father calls the poor man’s fertilizer.

I too have traveled down this dark and cold crevasse and emerged on the other side knowing this truth “I love who and what I love more deeply than ever. And I keenly feel in my bones the sheer evanescence of our existence”. Thank you for your beautiful words, and your triumphant life. I celebrate with you! Sláinte!

I am a prostate cancer survivor of almost 8 years. I was diagnosed when I was 48. Dana’s journal has put into words many of the the feelings we both share. I would give anything not to have cancer but I would never trade the emotional and spiritual growth it has given me.

“Most important, I think, I continue to consciously slow down as our maniacal culture speeds up. I’m constantly on the lookout for those miracles in a minor key that present themselves to us each day.”

That’s it exactly. I can finally see the wonder. I was going to fast before.

2 years ago, before my diagnosis–i felt like i had all the time in the world, i used to move so fast– never stopping to experience the “miracles in a minor key” (dana, your words are magnificent)–

the irony is that now, when i know i have limited time, that instead of moving faster, i have slowed down to a crawl. my body can’t move fast anymore, and i want to savor and enjoy every miracle to the fullest. i experience them all the time– right now, there is a cool breeze coming through the window that feels so refreshing.

dana, thank you so much for your vision and insight expressed so beautifully.

My husband, not I, had Hodgkins Lymphona several years ago. Even though I’m not the one who suffered the treatment, here are my miracles in a minor key: seeing my husband in the kitchen every morning drinking the coffee that I made; seeing him sleeping next to me and snoring; seeing him in his favorite chair watching hours of basketball; seeing him take off for an afternoon of bike riding on the first beautiful day of spring …. it’s a really long list, so I’ll stop here. Thank you for this lovely, thoughtful essay.

Beautiful column. All your columns are so eloquent, honest and heartfelt.

After DH’s cancer diagnosis in 2004, I have made a point to slow down. “I continue to consciously slow down as our maniacal culture speeds up.” This is my daily mantra…but I still get sometimes get caught up in the “busyness” of American culture.

sunsets, storm clouds, kindness between strangers, good cinema, double americanos, early am runs, my wife. i am five years past diagnosis and back to ‘normal’, meaning the threat is gone, the immediate threat anyway. i struggle w/ complacency. that is, remembering that time’s arrow is tapping at my back (to borrow your phrase) no matter what.
it is part of the strange gift of illness/cancer/trauma – the further away you are from oblivion and fear, the less you can recall the singular beauty of the mundane and the more you find yourself snarled in the bs (bills, traffic, lost email) of modern life. but when you’re facing doom you watch those far away people chatting absently on cell phones or buying groceries, oblivious it seems to time, and all you want is to be back in that place. it’s a paradox.

Right away in the morning my now 9 month old puppy decides to crawl as close to my face as possible to see if I’m awake and if I’m not, he covers me with puppy kisses until I ultimately get up, because I know that if I cover my face, he pounces on me until I turn over! At 6:30 am on the dot I am reminded that he is so happy to be alive, that today is the best day to get moving, the best day to forgive any harsh feelings from the night before and the best day to smile. Despite how tired I am…i always get up, because why would I ever trade those morning smiles and signs of affection for anything else?
No words are needed to know how much he appreciates me and I appreciate him :)

Sitting on my tired, broken porch (yeah, I’ll call a mason one of these days), in an old wicker chair at sunrise, listening to the birdsong compete with the faint echo of the train wheels, yes, that’s pretty good.

Cherry blossoms, sleeping babies at church, bags of groceries leaning on the door of the local food pantry, grass stains on my boys’ knees, my laundry waving in the wind on the clothesline…I always loved that line “I dwell in possibility, a fairer house than prose,” but I think my prosaic world has a lot going for it, too.

How very beautiful, and how moving. It occurs to me that being “forced” to enjoy the moment is a good thing, and that relishing your puppies and your wife and all the other treasures is a reminder of what is so important, and so much more eternal, than so much of what we worry about. To me, this is not looking for the silver lining, but rather a life lesson. Thank you for your writings, and your insights.